The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to an airflow control system for an information handling system.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an information handling system (IHS). An IHS generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, IHSs may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in IHSs allow for IHSs to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, IHSs may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Some IHSs such as, for example, “shared infrastructure” server IHSs, are configured to share fan systems in order to realize thermal benefits such as, for example, cost reductions for cooling redundancy. For example, such server IHSs may be grouped together and positioned in a multi-server IHS chassis that utilizes one or more fan systems to provide a cooling airflow to each of the server IHSs. This allows for the use of fewer fan systems (e.g., relative to systems that provide fan systems in each server IHS) while providing aggregated redundancy, and introduces the ability to use larger and more power efficient fan systems to cool the server IHSs within their shared cooling domain. However, despite the benefits detailed above, such shared cooling solutions suffer from number of deficiencies.
For example, multi-server IHS chassis often introduce non-symmetric or otherwise unbalanced airflow paths between different server IHSs and the fan systems in the multi-server IHS chassis, which results in non-symmetric airflows in the multi-server IHS chassis and an imbalance in the amount of airflow that is provided to each of the server IHSs. For a given operating condition of the fan system(s), this can cause one or more of the server IHSs to receive insufficient airflow for cooling, particularly when the server IHSs include stress/loading/heat generation profiles that differ across the server IHSs. The solution to this issue is typically to operate the fan system(s) such that the server IHS in the multi-server IHS chassis that receives the least airflow is adequately cooled, which often results in over provision of airflow to many of the other server IHSs in the multi-server IHS chassis, as well as overconsumption of power by the cooling system.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved cooling system for shared infrastructure IHSs.